You Banking On Those Fed Minutes? Bad Idea Brofessor

Takeaway:Anyone anchoring their investments to the picture of positivity painted by the Fed in their meeting minutes is missing the bigger picture.

Well... a lot.

None of it is good for the Fed's rosy economic narrative either.

Anyone anchoring their investments to the picture of positivity painted by the Fed in their meeting minutes is missing the bigger picture. First off, much has changed since the Fed's meeting about four weeks ago, especially in the labor market which FOMC members have proudly pointed to as the reality belying soft economic data.

In actuality, history tells us that jobs numbers are the last bastion of positive economic data to roll over at the end of the cycle. That's why the latest jobs data is concerning to say the least.

The April Jobs Report was an absolute bomb, missing Wall Street consensus numbers by a wide margin and continuing to slow from its February 2015 peak.

Jobless Claims increased 2% on a year-over-year basis, rising for the first time since 2012. Prior to that you'd have to go back to 2007 to find the last time claims were rising. In other words, the recession countdown begins.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index is up for the third straight week, the S&P 500 is down -2% since the meeting and the all-important U.S. #GrowthSlowing indicator, the 10s/2s yield spread, continues to hit levels not seen since 2007.

For what it's worth, we've noted before that instead of data dependent, Yellen & Co. are actually "S&P 500 dependent."

Just saying.

All is not well abroad either.

As the U.S. Dollar has strengthened here at home, emerging markets have sold off. (Since the meeting Emerging Markets (EEM) are down -7%.) The elephant in the room, of course, is China where, in April, manufacturing data has been soft, fiscal spending is decelerating and monetary policy is becoming less accomodative. So ... not good.

As Hedgeye Senior Macro analyst Darius Dale writes in an institutional research note:

"Save for the housing sector, Chinese economic growth has clearly faltered here in APR amid tighter administered policy and increasingly hawkish policy expectations, at the margins. All told, we reiterate our structural bearish bias on China amid what is quite possibly the world’s longest list of secular headwinds – not the least of which is demographics."

All told, that's why despite delusional comments from Fed heads, like San Francisco's John Williams, calling for two, even three rate hikes in 2016, macro markets still aren't biting. The hawkish jawboning hasn't been able to push the implied rate hike probability above 30% (see below).

Clearly, there's a lot of skepticism about the Fed's forecasting credibility.

Editor's Note: Below is a Hedgeye Guest Contributor research note written by Dr. Daniel Thornton. During his 33-year career at the St. Louis Fed, Thornton served as vice president and economic advisor. He currently runs D.L. Thornton Economics, an economic research consultancy. In the piece below, Thornton dissects and ultimately repudiates economist Larry Summers' secular stagnation hypothesis.

Thornton writes: "To me, the surprising thing is that such an obviously fallacious model continues to drive monetary and fiscal policy." Please note that while the views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Hedgeye, Thornton's analysis is hard-hitting and provocative. A must-read for thoughtful investors.

Larry Summers spoke at the 27th annual Homer Jones memorial lecture on April 6, 2016, at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, where he presented his secular stagnation hypothesis (SSH). The SSH asserts that: (i) the economy is stuck at a level of output that it consistently below its potential and (ii) the economy is stuck there because people are saving too much and businesses are not investing enough! The SSH is wrong for the simple reason that neither of its tenets is true.

In his Homer Jones presentation, which is not yet available, Summers presented a figure similar to Figure 1 below, which he presented at a Bank of Chile conference on November 20, 2015.

Figure 1 shows actual real gross domestic product (GDP) and estimates of potential output for each year from 2007 to 2015. Despite the fact that the estimates have been ratcheting down every year for the last eight years, actual output remains significantly below potential. Summers’ conclusion: output is stuck at a level persistently below potential!

It is important to realize that potential output is not really a physical thing; it’s a concept. It is based on the idea that there is a limit to the economy’s ability to produce goods and services. This idea persists in spite of the facts that (a) producers can build more capital and (b) people can be coaxed into the labor market by higher wages or more favorable terms of employment (e.g., flexible hours). Potential output is a fuzzy concept; no one knows exactly what the economy’s limit is. Hence, there are alternative definitions of it and it has been estimated in a variety of ways—all estimates of potential output are dubious.

Perhaps the most commonly used estimate of potential output is made by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Figure 2 below shows the CBO’s estimate of potential output for the period 1949Q1 - 2015Q3, and actual output (real GDP) over the same period. Figure 2 also shows an estimate of potential based on the trend of real GDP over the period 1949Q1 to 1994Q4 and extrapolated to 2015Q3.

Note that the CBO’s estimate of potential and the trend line estimate are nearly identical until the mid-1990s. This gives the impression that CBO was merely identifying the longer-run trend in output and calling it potential.

This is, in fact, essentially what the CBO’s procedure for estimating potential output does. This is illustrated in Figure 3, which shows the estimates of potential output that the CBO’s made for selected years between 1996 and 2016. As output began increasing in the mid-1990s, the CBO began ratcheting up its estimates of potential. Between 1996 and 2005, its estimates of potential output increased dramatically.

Nevertheless, the estimates remained significantly below actual output. The estimates began to decline in 2008 as output declined. However, it wasn’t until 2014 that the estimates became decidedly non-linear and matched the behavior of real output more closely over the period from the mid-1990s to 2008, but declined for years beyond 2008.

Why the CBO’s estimate of potential output eventually mimicked the longer-run trend in output can be understood by noting that the CBO assumes that output is produced by two inputs, labor and capital. The portion of output not explained by the CBO’s measures of the aggregate quantities of labor and capital is assumed to be due to productivity. As output began to increase above trend in the mid-1990s, the CBO found that a larger portion of output could not be accounted for by its measures of labor and capital, and by its previous estimate of productivity. It concluded that productivity had increased; it then adjusted its estimate upward to account for the increase in productivity.

Of course, the model only uses data on output, labor, and capital available when the estimates are made. Consequently, the CBO’s estimates could not account for the “hump” in output until there was sufficient data on the behavior of output, which seems to have occurred in 2014. Output dropped significantly after 2008 and remained low, and by 2014 there was enough data to allow the CBO’s procedure to capture this non-linear behavior in output.

However, as is always the case, the CBO’s procedure is slow to adjust to large changes in output, so it has yet to capture the marked decline in output between late 2007 and mid-2009. Hence, the CBO’s 2014 and 2016 estimates of potential output are considerably above actual output.

According to the CBO’s estimate, the economy has seldom achieved its potential during the last 25 years. Figure 4 shows the CBO’s estimate of the output gap (the difference between actual and potential output) along with the estimate of the gap based on the trend estimate of potential.

It is not surprising that both measures are similar until about 1991, when they start to diverge as output begins to rise. That the CBO’s estimate of the output gap is implausible is evidenced by the fact its measure, the economy was below potential during 45 of the 64 quarters between 1990Q1 and 2007Q3. The average output gap was -$84 billion compared with an average gap of -$10 billion during the over 40-year period from 1949Q1 through 1989Q4. The larger output gap occurred in spite of the fact that the unemployment rate was slightly lower; 5.4 percent compared with 5.7 percent for the earlier period.

Moreover, the unemployment rate was considerably lower than the 6.7 percent rate from 1970Q1 through 1989Q4, when the average output gap was smaller, -$67 billion. The average gap over the period from 1949Q1 to 2007Q3 was -$32.6 billion; over the entire period it is -$117.4 billion.

Of course, by the trend estimate, output was above potential for nearly 20 years. So the natural question to ask is: If the large and persistent increase in output was not due to a precipitous rise in potential output, what caused it? I believe it was caused by a confluence of events rather than an inexplicable rise in labor productivity growth and subsequent fall.

Initially, the rise in output was fueled by a rise in technology and technological innovations, which were facilitated by the development of the World Wide Web. Not surprisingly, the rise in technology generated a massive increase in wealth, reflected in the enormous growth in the NASDAQ from the mid-1990s to early 2000.

This, in turn, fueled strong growth in construction and, therefore, output. There was a pause in the boom with the bursting of the so-called Dot.com bubble and the accompanying 2001 recession. This rise in output was not accompanied by an overinvestment in real capital, so the 2001 recession was short and mild.

The continuation of the high level of output from the early 2000s to 2007 was fueled by a boom in residential construction driven by financial innovations, such as securitization, making home ownership a national priority, and an overly aggressive monetary policy. The Fed reduced its funds rate target to the then historically low level of 1 percent from June 2003 to June 2004 and then increased it slowly over the next two years.

The boom in residential construction further accelerated with the rise in subprime lending beginning in 2003; new privately-owned housing units under construction increased by nearly 365% between May 2003 and January 2006. The house-price bubble burst as house prices began to decline nationally in 2006. The result was the financial crisis and the 2007-2009 recession.

Unlike the previous one, this recession was accompanied by an excess supply of real capital in the form of residential real estate. Recessions that are accompanied by an excess supply of capital are more severe because it takes a long time for the capital stock to return to a level consistent with economic fundamentals. That the adjustment of the housing stock has still not equilibrated is witnessed by the fact the percentage of loans that are thirty or more days delinquent or in foreclosure remains at 6.9 percent, nearly a full percentage point higher than the average for the period 1980 - 2007.

You might be saying: “Output has grown exceptionally slowly during this expansion, so something else must be going on.” I agree. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that output is below potential as Summers and others would like you to believe. To understand the economy’s slow growth, it is important to note that output growth has been trending down for some time. Figure 5 shows a 6-year moving average of the annual growth rate of output from 1950Q1 to 2015Q3 (the data are plotted on the last observation in the sample). The accompanying trend line is based on the moving average data from 1956Q1 to 1994Q4. Output growth cycled around a declining trend over the entire period.

Economist John Cochrane argues that growth is slow because the “U.S. economy is simply overrun by an out-of-control and increasingly politicized regulatory state.” While the declining trend in output growth has been accompanied by a trend toward excess regulation and governmental overreach, I believe it is wrong to attribute the slow growth to a single cause. Other factors have contributed to the decline in the economic growth rate.

A contributing factor is Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society (1964), which ushered in a host of social programs (and government spending), many of which continue to the present. Subsequent administrations have added new programs and expanded existing ones. The increased spending was not invested in infrastructure, which would have facilitated economic growth. Indeed, by most accounts, the country’s infrastructure has deteriorated—more than 60,000 U.S. bridges are in need of structural repairs and, by some estimates, about 70% of highways need repair or are congested.

Instead, these funds were spent in a futile attempt to increase the economic wellbeing of current citizens—the poverty rate has changed little, while the number of persons in poverty has trended up (see U.S. census report "Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014, Figure 4"). These programs succeeded in raising consumption—consumption as a percent of GDP increased steadily from 58.8% of GDP in 1967 to 68.4% in 2015. These programs slowed growth by disincentivizing work, encouraging spending over saving, and by diverting funds that could have been used for improvements to the nation’s infrastructure.

Another factor — a declining trend in the education of the population — is related to the first. I believe that the economic growth has been hampered by two opposing trends; an educational system that has produced an increasing proportion of uneducated or undereducated citizens and the growth in science and technology that requires an increasingly well educated and sophisticated workforce. The result is an oversupply of unskilled or under-skilled labor at a time when technological innovation is eliminating jobs that are typically filled by the less well educated.

The government has also contributed to slow growth by shifting risk from the private sector to government in the apparent, albeit naïve, belief that doing so reduced total risk. In a similar vein, Federal and state governments have given citizens a false sense of security by promising health and income security benefits (promises that society is coming to realize ultimately cannot be kept). The point is: all of these programs incentivize spending over saving and leisure over work. Productivity gains have largely come from technological innovations; jobs that require well trained labor and fewer workers, rather than from a better trained and educated population.

The conclusion is that output growth is slow because growth has been trending down for these and perhaps other reasons. It remains below the Figure 5 trend because, as I have argued elsewhere, the Fed’s zero interest rate policy has produced slower than expected growth by distorting asset prices which, in turn, distorted the allocation of economic resources that slowed the adjustment of the capital stock. Consequently, economic growth continues to be held back by an excess of real capital.

Of course, the anemic growth has emboldened those who believe that we need more regulations and government spending programs. The big problem is that monetary and fiscal policies (indeed, economic policy generally) have been based on an economic model that is theoretically bankrupt and displays only a passing resemblance to the real economy. Policies driven by this model impede rather than promote economic growth.

The second tenet of Summers’ SSH is more fanciful than the first. Summers’ contention that Americans are just saving too much is at odds with the facts. The personal saving rate (disposable income less consumption) has been declining since the mid-1970s. While it increased briefly from 2009 to 2013, it remains less than half the average rate from 1959 through the mid-1980s, a period when economic growth was significantly higher.

In a 2014 speech, Fed Chair, Janet Yellen, noted that Americans have saved too little and that over 40% of American households have net worth of $40,000 or less—most much less. Moreover, contrary to what the SSH suggests should be true, the saving rate and output growth have both trended down over the past 45 years.

Public saving has also trended down. With the exception of the four years 1998-2001, the Federal government has had a deficit in each year since 1970. Moreover, the deficits have been extraordinarily large since 2007, both in absolute terms and as a percent of GDP. The federal debt now totals about $19 trillion. The debt of state and local governments is at record levels too, about $3 trillion, excluding employee retirement funds (nearly all of which are underfunded). Moreover, while real investment spending declined significantly during the recession, it has rebounded nicely and is currently above its pre-recession peak. So there doesn’t appear to be a significant shortage of investment relative to previous periods.

You might ask: Why would Summers propose a hypothesis that is so at odds with the facts? I believe there is a simple explanation. Specifically, his SSH is based on the same economic model that has been used to formulate the Fed’s monetary policy and U.S. fiscal policy since the mid-1960s. That model assumes that whenever economic growth is slow it is due to a lack of demand; people need to spend more, save less. If growth is persistently slow, there is secular stagnation. The cure is always the same—spend more! To me, the surprising thing is that such an obviously fallacious model continues to drive monetary and fiscal policy.

REPLAY: Post-Acute Providers - A Review of Major Regulatory Trends

Takeaway:We are hosting a conference call on Thursday May 26 at 1PM ET to review major policy and regulatory trends in post-acute space

Today we discussed the major policy and regulatory trends affecting post-acute providers such as Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities, Skilled Nursing Facilities, Home Health Agencies and Long-term Care Hospitals. We also introduced our approach to analyzing federal and, from time to time, state health care policy. Please contact for additional information.

WATCH THE REPLAY BELOW

Post-acute care has become the focus of policy makers interest for over a decade. The trajectory of reform has steepened in recent years due to passage of the Affordable Care Act and the IMPACT Act, among other things.

Key points to be discussed:

Catalysts for change

Reimbursement environment including site neutral payments

Policy implementation through the powerful CMMI

The data problem

Industry Response

This will be an overview of the post-acute space to provide background and context for upcoming deep dives into specific initiatives like bundled payments for hip and knee replacements.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR | QUIET

Takeaway:There wasn't too much to get excited about on the risk front last week. That said, Chinese steel remains the one indicator worth watching.

Key Takeaway:

Risk measures were subdued last week. However, the price for Chinese steel continued to drop, falling by another 5% last week, bringing the month-over-month change to -21% as the mid-February to mid-April artificial reflation trade unwinds.

Our heatmap below is mostly neutral on the short term, negative on the intermediate, and positive on long-term readings.

10. Euribor-OIS Spread – The Euribor-OIS spread (the difference between the euro interbank lending rate and overnight indexed swaps) measures bank counterparty risk in the Eurozone. The OIS is analogous to the effective Fed Funds rate in the United States. Banks lending at the OIS do not swap principal, so counterparty risk in the OIS is minimal. By contrast, the Euribor rate is the rate offered for unsecured interbank lending. Thus, the spread between the two isolates counterparty risk. The Euribor-OIS spread was unchanged at 8 bps.

13. Chinese Non-Performing Loans – Chinese non-performing loans amount to 1,392 billion Yuan as of March 31, 2016, which is up +41.7% year over year. Given the growing focus on China's debt growth and the potential fallout, we've decided to begin tracking loan quality. Note: this data is only updated quarterly.

14. Chinese Credit Outstanding – Chinese credit outstanding amounts to 148.7 trillion RMB as of April 30, 2016, which is up +11.9% year over year. Note: this data is only updated monthly.

15. 2-10 Spread – Last week the 2-10 spread widened to 96 bps, 1 bps wider than a week ago. We track the 2-10 spread as an indicator of bank margin pressure.

16. CDOR-OIS Spread – The CDOR-OIS spread is the Canadian equivalent of the Euribor-OIS spread. It is the difference between the Canadian interbank lending rate and overnight indexed swaps, and it measures bank counterparty risk in Canada. The CDOR-OIS spread tightened by 1 bps to 40 bps.

Joshua Steiner, CFA

Jonathan Casteleyn, CFA, CMT

Share

Print

05/23/16 10:04 AM EDT

The Most Obvious U.S. #GrowthSlowing Indicator?

Takeaway:A closer look at the 10s/2s yield spread provides an unequivocally bearish signal on U.S. growth.

need convincing of our U.S. #growthslowing call?

"Most things macro (last week) queued off of what I think was another head-fake in rate hike risk; UST 10yr Yield +15 bps w/w was a counter TREND move to 1.90% which has since pulled all the way back to 1.82% this am, flattening the Yield Spread to yet another YTD low of +94bps wide (10s/2s), which is an explicitly bearish GDP growth signal."

Click image to enlarge

Just an FYI, this spread has compressed to levels not seen since 2007.

Still don't believe U.S. Growth is Slowing?

Look Out! European Equities "Teetering On Implosion"

Despite the irony of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew scolding Japan for devaluing the yen at the G7 meeting over the weekend (after years of Fed US Dollar devaluation), all the G7 bloviating didn’t change much in macro markets. The top correlation risk in macro markets remains the US Dollar.

As McCullough writes in a note to subscribers this morning, with the U.S. dollar index up for the third straight week, that's taking the hatchet to European equities:

"Europe teetering on implosion (Equities) again as USD signals immediate-term TRADE overbought vs. Euro at $1.11-1.12; Italy’s stock market is a bloody mess, -1.5% (leading losers), taking its crash to -26% since this time last year; NIRP doesn’t work."

With ECB head Draghi struggling to arrest the crash, the continued implosion of European equities is yet more evidence of the central planning #BeliefSystem gone awry.

Early Look

daily macro intelligence

Relied upon by big institutional and individual investors across the world, this granular morning newsletter distills the latest and most vital market developments and insures that you are always in the know.

Thank You!

Your request has been received

You have been added to our list and will receive an email shortly.

If you do not receive an email, please check your spam filter, and then email
support@hedgeye.com.
By joining our email marketing list you agree to receive emails from Hedgeye. This is a distinct and separate service form any of our paid service products. You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in one of the emails.